News from around the World

In ‘Look of Silence,’ Relatives of Indonesian Genocide Victims Seek Answers Published July 18, 2015 Two documentaries about the unreconciled history of mass killings in Indonesia 50 years ago are leading to calls for change in that country – and for the U.S. to apologize for its own part in sanctioning the bloodshed. VOA’s Carolyn Weaver has more about “The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence,” both by American filmmaker Josh Oppenheimer. Replacing Poppies with Coffee in MyanmarRead more

Rights March to Washington Starting from Selma. To highlight what they say is a fresh attack on equal rights, U.S. civil rights campaigners are marching 1,385 kilometers from Selma, Alabama to Washington, D.C. After starting at the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge, the “40-day-and-40-night” march is to end September 15. To mark the start of the so-called “America’s Journey for Justice” Reverend Theresa Dear told the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper, “We are doing something of biblical proportions.” More than 200 supporters areRead more

Obama to Unveil Plan to Cut Carbon Emissions from Power Production. U.S. President Barack Obama is set to unveil new regulations Monday aimed at cutting carbon pollution that comes from the nation’s power plants. The goal is for plants to reduce their carbon emissions by 32 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2030. Individual states would be responsible for coming up with their own plans to meet the target. Those plans would have to go into effect by 2022.Read more

UN Envoy Jolie Spotlights Refugee Conditions in Myanmar. Actress and humanitarian activist Angelina Jolie joined Myanmar’s opposition leader and democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi, to sit down with female factory workers in Yangon to bring attention to the dire conditions in which they live and work. Jolie, who is a special envoy for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, is on a four-day visit to the Southeast Asian nation. During her meeting with the factory workers, on the outskirtsRead more

India, Bangladesh End Limbo For Thousands. Indians and Bangladeshis are celebrating the end of a 68-year state of limbo for tens of thousands of people living along the porous border joining the two nations. At midnight Friday, local time, India and Bangladesh exchanged more than 150 islands of territory – Bangladeshi territory in India, and Indian territory in Bangladesh – isolated since independence from British colonial rule in 1947. Residents were granted citizenship in the country of their choice –Read more

New Taliban Leader Says Insurgency Will Continue. ISLAMABAD—The Taliban has released an audio message from new leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, intended to reassure Taliban leaders, elders, clerics and scholars that the Taliban jihad will continue until the Islamic system is brought to Afghanistan. Mansoor said all decisions will be taken in the light of Islamic law, be it war or peace talks, and advised his followers not to pay attention to rumors being spread about the Taliban campaign. He saidRead more

N. Korea Says Jailed Canadian Missionary Admits to ‘Subversive’ Acts. A Korean-Canadian missionary detained in North Korea since January has reportedly confessed to plotting so-called subversive acts against the North. Pyongyang’s official news agency said Thursday Reverend Hyeon Soo Lim, pastor of the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, admitted during a press conference to “subversive plots and activities in a sinister bid to build a religious state in the DPRK” A Canadian foreign ministry spokeswoman says “Canada is deeplyRead more

Exiled Yemen Vice President Returns to War-Torn Aden. Yemeni Vice President Khaled Bahah Saturday became the most senior official from Yemen’s exiled government to return to the country since local fighters drove out Iranian-backed Shi’ite Houthi rebels. Bahah was scheduled to chair a Cabinet meeting Saturday with seven government ministers in Aden, a Yemeni official told The Associated Press. He flew to Aden from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where the Yemeni government had been based since President Abd-Rabbu Mansour HadiRead more

North Korea Ramps Up Rhetoric In Wake of Iran Nuclear Deal. North Korea is ratcheting up nuclear rhetoric to resist international pressure arising from Iran’s nuclear deal. This week, the North mobilized its ambassadors to stress that Pyongyang is not interested in an Iran-type nuclear deal, and it will not negotiate away its nuclear weapons. “One must say that the nuclear problem on the Korean Peninsula and the Iranian nuclear dossier are absolutely different in nature,” Kim Hyun Joon, Pyongyang’sRead more

Rights March to Washington Starting from Selma. To highlight what they say is a fresh attack on equal rights, U.S. civil rights campaigners are marching 1,385 kilometers from Selma, Alabama to Washington, D.C. After starting at the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge, the “40-day-and-40-night” march is to end September 15. To mark the start of the so-called “Ameri […]

Obama to Unveil Plan to Cut Carbon Emissions from Power Production. U.S. President Barack Obama is set to unveil new regulations Monday aimed at cutting carbon pollution that comes from the nation’s power plants. The goal is for plants to reduce their carbon emissions by 32 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2030. Individual states would be responsible fo […]

UN Envoy Jolie Spotlights Refugee Conditions in Myanmar. Actress and humanitarian activist Angelina Jolie joined Myanmar’s opposition leader and democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi, to sit down with female factory workers in Yangon to bring attention to the dire conditions in which they live and work. Jolie, who is a special envoy for the U.N. High Commissioner […]

India, Bangladesh End Limbo For Thousands. Indians and Bangladeshis are celebrating the end of a 68-year state of limbo for tens of thousands of people living along the porous border joining the two nations. At midnight Friday, local time, India and Bangladesh exchanged more than 150 islands of territory – Bangladeshi territory in India, and Indian territory […]

New Taliban Leader Says Insurgency Will Continue. ISLAMABAD—The Taliban has released an audio message from new leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, intended to reassure Taliban leaders, elders, clerics and scholars that the Taliban jihad will continue until the Islamic system is brought to Afghanistan. Mansoor said all decisions will be taken in the light of Islami […]

N. Korea Says Jailed Canadian Missionary Admits to ‘Subversive’ Acts. A Korean-Canadian missionary detained in North Korea since January has reportedly confessed to plotting so-called subversive acts against the North. Pyongyang’s official news agency said Thursday Reverend Hyeon Soo Lim, pastor of the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, admitted du […]

Exiled Yemen Vice President Returns to War-Torn Aden. Yemeni Vice President Khaled Bahah Saturday became the most senior official from Yemen’s exiled government to return to the country since local fighters drove out Iranian-backed Shi’ite Houthi rebels. Bahah was scheduled to chair a Cabinet meeting Saturday with seven government ministers in Aden, a Yemeni […]

North Korea Ramps Up Rhetoric In Wake of Iran Nuclear Deal. North Korea is ratcheting up nuclear rhetoric to resist international pressure arising from Iran’s nuclear deal. This week, the North mobilized its ambassadors to stress that Pyongyang is not interested in an Iran-type nuclear deal, and it will not negotiate away its nuclear weapons. “One must say t […]